40 APPEARANCE AND DECLINE OF MALARIOUS DISEASE. 



together animated nature, and this rests upon the material substra- 

 tum, brute matter with its forces. 



Life, a grand totality, perpetually destroyed and perpetually re- 

 newed, maintains the grand design in nature, through a succession 

 of conscious and unconscious individuals, ever working out ends, 

 approved by supreme wisdom, though by us at best imperfectly, if 

 at all, discerned. 



ON THE APPEARANCE AND DECLINE OF MALARIOUS 



DISEASE IN THE VALLEY OF THE LOWER 



GRAND RIVER. 



BY ARTHUR HARVEY. 



Read before the Hamilton Association. 



The appearance in particular localities of peculiar forms of disease 

 forms a highly interesting subject for study and research. Without 

 alluding to the malaria of the Romagna, a district formerly salubrious, 

 or to the encroachments which the yellow fever is yearly making on 

 northern regions, or to other similar cases far from home, we will point 

 to a tract of country, situated close by our doors : the Valley of the 

 Lower Grand River, which, from a healthy settlement, became one of 

 the most unhealthy in America, and has recently recovered its pristine 

 condition. The Grand River, previous to 1834, was allowed to pursue 

 its natural course unimpeded, to Lake Erie ; but in that year the 

 Grand River Navigation Company built dams upon the river in several 

 places, making it navigable as far as Brantford. These dams are in 

 some instances so high as to throw back the water for a distance o^ 

 sixteen or seventeen miles. Previously to their erection, there had 

 not been a single case of fever and ague in the neighbourhood of the 

 river. Neither did this disease manifest itself to any considerable 

 extent for three or four years after their being built. But from 1839 

 to 1847 malarious disease of the nature above referred to, and of a 

 culiarly malignant character, was universally prevalent, from Brant- 

 ford downward. It attacked, especially, recent immigrants, whether 

 they came from Europe or from the Lower Provinces. In the tract 



